Share
Clip description
In this dramatised scenario, Shirley displays signs of dengue fever and a doctor explains to Shirley and her mother the dangers. Next, the doctor leaves as Shirley plays on a swing in her garden. Inside his office, the doctor explains to Shirley the origins of infectious diseases and the mosquito’s part in spreading dengue fever. In response, they clean up the garden and spray insecticide.
Please note: sections of the soundtrack are mute, and some shots may be out of sequence.
Curator’s notes
The Second World War forms the backdrop of this clip. A photograph of a man in uniform (Shirley’s absent father) is clearly visible on the mantelpiece as the doctor talks to Shirley’s mother. Later, the doctor says to Shirley, 'as your father’s away fighting one war, we’ll go and start a war in your garden’. This aligns the public health message of the film with the domestic war effort.
Some of the shots in this clip seem to be out of sequence, most obviously where Shirley gets bitten by a mosquito directly after she is in bed with dengue, and where the doctor leaves a recovered Shirley in the garden. Although Shirley looks through the microscope in this clip, we don’t see the extraordinary micro-photography of the mosquito and its larvae until the end of the film.
As well as highlighting the importance of editing in constructing a coherent narrative, this is an example of archival footage that has been re-cut after its theatrical release. Without knowing this particular print’s history (such as where it screened and the condition in which it was originally found before being deposited with the National Film and Sound Archive), it is difficult to know why the shots ended up in the order they appear in this clip.
